owne understanding as the best and surest way to keep their soules safe This understanding how subject it was to be wrought upon and to turn from the truth though fully convinc'd of it by the inticing power of the flesh or the sensual and inferiour faculties of mans mind hath bin already shewed Adams sin then was not only and meerly the transgression of the law but was mixed with somewhat an ignorant rejecting and contemning of the offer of the Gospel which was the only sure means to have translated him without sin at all intervening out of his righteous mutable state into an immutability in righteousnes But such is and was from the beginning the tender mercy and long-suffering of God our mediatour and Redeemer to Adam's posterity even in their fallen state that he not only renews and repeats to man his former gracious offer of Salvation through faith and the knowledg of himself in the Gospel but reveales over and besides this the means and way how through faith in his blood all mankind may be againe restored and obteine remission of sins All that will may returne againe by vertue of Christs death into that mutable state of righteousnes and holines lost in Adam as the common salvation and a forerunning dispensation to the gift of the son himself according to the promise And may it not reasonably be expected that from the experience of the general love and good will which Christ hath thus shewed in common towards all men that they should be easily prevailed with to give up their soules absolutely into his hands through that faith that is more precious then gold unchangable and never failing through the power whereof we are made more then conquerours over all enemies even through him that hath thus loved us with an unchangable and everlasting love For surely in this God hath greatly commended his love unto all mankind that when they were without strength Christ died for the ungodly or for all sinners whilst yet in their sins Much more then will the current of his love run towards us being once justified by his blood that through him we may be saved to the uttermost from the wrath to come For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled shall we be saved by his life This was in effect the voice and doctrine of the Gospel which God himself preached to our first parents immediatly after their disobedience and at the very same time that he passed his righteous sentence against them for their sin Gen. 3.15 In this Scripture God promises the sending of his owne Son in the likenes of sinful flesh to condemn sin in the flesh and make atonement by the sacrifice of it that the righteousnes of the law might be fulfilled in all those who walke not after the flesh but after the spirit And most expressly and particularly is the Gospel as wel as the law preached by God to Cain Gen. 4.7 and in him to all mankind whether ever they reap the saving benefit by it or no as to life everlasting any more then he did To him it is that God sayes If thou doest wel shalt thou not be accepted Is there not a meanes sufficient and able to bring thee even thee back againe into reconciliation and acceptance with God through the ransom that is paid in Christs blood But if thou doest not wel sin lieth at the door that is to say the wages and punishment of sin And this yet is not all For if thou objectest what will it advantage me to have sins past remitted and the breach made up if there be yet no effectual remedy provided and afforded to prevent a relapse into sin more fatal and irrecoverable then the first fal and a provoking of God afresh by reason of the unsubjectednes that the flesh or sensual part of the soule is apt to fly out into and that prevailingly and finally against the restored and anew enlightned spirit of the mind as it fell out with man at first To this God answers it shall be subject to thee and thou shalt rule over it It shal be given againe into thy hand and power to subdue and bring under if the fault be not in thy self Why therefore art thou wrath and why is thy countenance fallen as if I were partiall in my dealing and that my wayes were not equall Q. But what is it does or can enable cain or any other man since the fall to doe the good God speaks to him of and avoid the evil he forbids as also to suffer according to the will of God and that patiently though for doing wel Answ Surely there are means provided in and by the Redeemer and the work of redemption given to him the promised seed to finish which hath a vertue and sufficiency to free and save all men from the evil danger and curse that is come upon them by Adams transgression and to restore them againe to their primitive state of purity and freedom if the fault be not in themselvs And when they are brought so far on their way againe towards the end for which they were at first created and since redeemed that is to say the inheritance of life eternal then is renewed unto them by Christ the offer of saving them to the uttermost past all danger of a relapse and of giving them that better fredom wherewith the son is willing to make them free indeed unchangably subjecting them to the leading and Rule of his spirit cohabiting in and with the heart that is regenerated making it thereby fit to receave and entertein him and bringing into it that state of life over which the second death hath no power Hence is it Christ is said to be the saviour of all men but especially of those that beleeve And his will is that prayer and giving of thanks be made for all men of all sorts and degrees from the highest to the lowest This is good and acceptable in his sight who is the God and saviour that gave himself a ransom for all men and who therefore will have all men to be saved as least so far as to come to the knowledg of the truth and have the offer of it in a state of free exercise of their will and arbitrary choice that according as they are prevailed with either to receave it in the love thereof or to reject it as a stone of stumbling and rock of offence hateful to them they may obtein eternal salvation or incur the pains of eternal damnation And yet those that are saved are to acknowledg and experience that it is of meer grace and not of themselvs nor of works least any man should boast But it is wrought by the faith that excludes boasting setting up such a workmanship or building in the heart of every true beleever whereby he is created in Christ Jesus unto good works that are before prepared and ordeined of God that they should
in the flesh abolishes and abrogates that dispensation of the mosaical ministry and in stead thereof makes the heart and conscience of man in himself and followers the fleshly tables whereon the law is written by the Spirit of the living God Hereby a conformity of holy flesh is wrought in man like unto the flesh of Christ through the hearing of the word This is the washing of our body or natural man with the pure water of the living WORD and Spirit of Christ through the ministry of the outward preaching thereof to the purging and clensing us from all filthines of flesh And this is obteined through the vertue and price of Christs blood together with the atonement and remission of sins past Under this dispensation it is that by the doctrin of the cross signified in the Sacraments of baptism and the Lords Supper and thereby lively represented to the eyes of the very natural man he is taught the Gospel a second time under the Scripture dispensation of law and Gospel Neverthelesse this teaching yet is short of the glory of God to be revealed in and by Christs personal appearance in Spirit which as it is the 3. Third and last dispensation of law and Gospel so does it differ in excellency and glory very much from the other two For it is the fruit of the vine which Christ reservs to drink with his owne brethren and faithful Servants in the Kingdom of his father or which his father hath given unto him that those that have continued with the Son in his temptations and followed him fully in the regeneration may eat and drink at his table in this his Kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel or the natural and fleshly holy seed jew or gentile who at that day shal be found to be but in their mutable state of righteousnes and life This is the best wine far exceeding any before receaved in types figures and Sacraments being that which Christ keeps till the last as that fruit of himself the heavenly and true vine which will refresh the heart of God and of man or of the divine and heavenly man as wel as of the earthly and natural man brought forth in the exercise of an immutable righteousnes and made after the power of an endlesse life The former of these is to sit at Christs right hand the latter at his left in this his Kingdom and glory unto which both of them are fitted and prepared by the father through the lively conformity they are taken into and made to beare with Christ in his death and resurrection So much be spoken in way of resolution to the first general query of the 4 above propounded to insist on in this Treatise to wit concerning the subject matter of the law or command of God delivered to man by the divine WORD and oracles of God under the threefold dispensation thereof together with the difference of these dispensations under the law of nature Scripture Spirit The time of the latter branch of the 2d dispensation beginning with John the Baptists and Christs owne personal ministry in the flesh is now far spent and the yet more glorious day of Christs 2d appearance and dispensation in Spirit is at hand The second General query to be insisted on is concerning the mutable state man was created in at first and remains in even after the fall out of which he is again capable to be changed and either restored and regenerated by the knowledg of Christ in the Gospel or else cast down for ever into eternal perdition The WORD that hath bin the old Commandement from the beginning that it may evidently appear to all understandings to be the word of Truth doth branch itself forth as hath bin declared into two Testimonies or witnesses which are both of them the law of Gods mouth The one conteins in it the doctrine of the law of works the rule of mans first communion with God in the first Covenant the other the doctrin of the law and righteousnes of faith the rule of that 2d communion which God thinkes fit to take man into in the spirit of his Son which can never be lost as the first may but endures to everlasting life Now two Testimonies according to the law are sufficient for the discovery and confirmation of all truth Answerable hereunto does he that is Truth itself shine and give forth the light of his glory whose two Testimonies may either be joyned in consortship harmony and subserviency with and to one another in the ministry and dispensing of them and so become a law of life to all that heare and obey them that new song mention'd Rev. 14.3 sung before the throne called chap. 15.3 the song of Moses and of the lamb sung together in perfect harmony and agremēt which no man can learne but the 144000 Virgins that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth being redeemed from among men as the first fruits to God and to the Lamb. But now these two laws or Testimonies of works and of faith as they may be taught and dispensed in difference disagreement inconsistency and opposition one unto the other may become a ministry of death either by setting up and exalting the letter above and against the spirit or disjoyning the spirit from the letter as that which may be without it and needs no consortship with it This is the work of the false deceitful Spirit the father of lies and is not of the Truth Now these being the Testimonies which from the beginning are commanded by God to be heard and obeyed no sooner was man created in Gods image and endued with an immortal intellectual rational and sensual soule made a free agent but God set them before him as a meet and capable subject to be made wise and happy in the practice of them The work of the one of them was immediatly written in his heart by the finger of God at his creation and the word of the other of them as soon as he was put into Paradise was sounding every wherein his eares and was exposed to the sight of his mind in the visible types and signes of the Sabbath the institution of marriage the tree of life and by the ministry of the holy angels Two things are recorded by Moses concerning the first make and constitution of being given unto man by God at his creation The first we find Gen. 1.26 27. where the counsel is taken by the blessed Trinity his creatours within themselvs saying Let us make man in our image after our likenes and let him have dominion over the visible creation and be fruitfull multiply and replenish the earth ruling over every living thing that moveth upon the earth So God created man in his owne image in the image of God created he him male and female created he them God is in his being the highest reason and the operation or work of his mind is discovered and made knowne by the word of his
is under from God as he is made in Gods image he hath an aptitude a strong bent lively inclination and disposition of mind to the right and just which is conteined in the law of God and wherein mans whole duty doth consist But because as hath bin said man is by nature not withstanding all this left at such a liberty as that he is not by any certain prevailing and overcomming power over and against whatsoever shall make resistance with held and restrained kept and bound fast to his duty at this door through the weakenes of the flesh sin entered and death by sin passed upon all men because in Adam the common parent all men had sinned This door unto sin is kept open so long as mans naturall freedom continues with him either as receaved at first before the fall or by way of restoration through the redeemers blood since which we shall speake unto in its proper place That which opens this door is mans owne lust as it is written Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with evill neither tempteth he any man But every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his owne lust and enticed Thē when lust hath conceaved it brings forth sin and sin when it is finished brings forth death The mind of God is above all temptatiō to evil The mind of man is not so though formed in Gods image whilst he is yet under the law and its dominion and hath not atteined unto nor bin brought under grace So long then as man lives in and will not part with his primitive natural fredom nor resign it through faith in exchang for a second gift of it from God in a better kind and way he is stil under the dominion of the law and not only accountable for the breaches of it and transgressions against it but under the inevitable condemning and revenging power thereof that wil first or last execute the curse threatned upon all evil doers But he that is under grace is become dead to the law being crucified with Christ or fastned and bound by the power of the death and cross of Christ with such a bent of mind and hatred against sin as nothing can alter or chang and is so quickned and made free and a live unto righteousnes as nothing can hinder the course and duration of it By this means the door of the mind is so fixed and fast shut against all sin as it is not in the power of the gates of hel ever to set or break it open more In the mind of man we are to acknowledg as hath bin already intimated two parts 1. the spirit of the mind the superiour and intellectual part equalizing man with angels 2dly the sensitive and inferiour part which abases man into the likenes and into a kind of equality with the Beasts and is indeed capable to make him a beast yea actually and that too generally does make men so This inferiour part of mans spirit is as the door of his mind the mouth or instrumēt of its cōverse inward or outward and in distinction from the first and superiour power the spirit of the mind is called in scripture flesh or the sensuall and living soule Hēce that of the Apostle Rom. 7.25 So then I myself with my mind do serve the law of God but with my flesh the law of sin So also our blessed saviour observing the fleshly drowsines of his disciples that they could not watch one hour with him at such a pinch of straits as he then was in the spirit says he is willing but the flesh is weak This was the lusting flesh in mā evē in paradise whilst in his innocēcy and through its weaknes was the door of the mind set open to let in temptation and sin For it is soon taken and deceaved and is weak in resisting evil And it is as soon weary of wel-doing if the way to persevere in weldoing be through the crosse and all kinds of streights hardships and disappointments unto the flesh even to this fleshly and sensual part of mans mind For no sooner does this come into activity and liberty by the conjunction and fellowship it is taken into with the intellectual and superiour part the spirit of the mind but it is apt to run wild fly out and grow untamed and extravagant as that which loves not to be accustomed to the yoke and held in subjection to the spirit of the mind as that is subjected to the law of God It is apt to judg itself wise enough to make its owne choice and to trust to its owne single judgment in all its actings And in case it be cross'd and not complied with by the dictates of right reason in its superiour part 't is apt to murmure and be sullenly rebellious so as to forbeare to do its office and duty to its head and Lord the spirit of the mind In order to bribe off and gain the consent and approbation of the superiour and ruling power of the mind to the way and course it desires to take it will invent many fair specious and plausible pretences make false representations of things fascinating appearances and mists to delude and blind the superiour discerning of the mind It will turne every stone to obteine its end spreading before the spirit of the mind flattering speeches as nets and bands to take and ensnare it as the strong man Samson was serv'd by his Dalilah This demeanour and practice of the woman the female and inferiour power of the mind towards its Lord and husband the superiour is most lively described by Solomon Eccles 7.26 I find sayes he more bitter then death the woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands bands who so pleaseth God which without faith is impossible shall escape from her but the sinner shal be takē by her he that is a sinner through unbeleife The spirit of mans mind by refusing and resisting that offer and work of the spirit of God whereby it should be brought into a most free subjection and captivity to the law of faith becomes a sinner and so comes to be taken by the nets and snares the enticing words and pretences of its inferiour power and in downright tearmes at length to be wholly captivated and subjected under the usurped commanding influence of that sensuall life it ought to rule over This was the lusting flesh in Adam as also in Eve before the fall which the Serpent knew how to tempt and gratify And such did the weaknes of this flesh prove that it was not able to withstand or resist the temptation All that the serpent aim'd at was but to prevaile with this flesh to think itself so wise and sufficiently able to move and act by the strength and excellency of its owne single judgment as that it might safely undertake to doe what should be found most liking and agreable to its owne sense and refuse the
contrary without being bound up to any necessary dependance upon or holding conformity and agrement in its actions either with the right dictates of the intellectual part or with the righteous rule of Gods law This once obtein'd Satan had his end For he well knew that this being granted all the rest of the evil he desired to bring into man and by him into the world would easily and quickly follow And this was so pleasing and gratifying a baite to the flesh the assuming a power to direct its owne steps take its owne course and way that it was quickly swallowed downe by man without any due deliberation or pause upon the matter suspecting no hurt as yet till the lust that thus was conceaved came to be finished and to take along with it the spirit of the mind corrupting and seducing that also from the simplicity that is in Christ and thereby turning the soule from the truth of God declared in his law to the lie and deceit of Satan conceaved in his crafty suggestion Thus by degrees was man brought to worship and serve the creature that is the devil more then the creator under whose law he was first made and who is the only true God blessed for ever Unto this the Scripture witnesseth Rom. 1 22 23. Professing themselvs to bewise they became fools and changed the glory WORD or Image of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and unto birds four-footed beasts and creeping things This man came to by preferring the counsell of a fallen angel that was gratifying and desireable food in the eye of flesh before the holy law and commandement of the living and eternal God which by the eye of his spirit or superiour part of his mind he saw and knew himself obliged to the observation of For this cause God gives men up to the course and full sway of their owne wills and vile affections leaving them as bondslaves to sin and Sathan children of wrath and disobedience in whom the Prince of the aire seats himself as in his throne carrying them captive to his will Mans continuance in honour and in Gods image wherein he was created was but a very little while He quickly found out and followed many inventions contrary to Gods expresse command written in his mind as also signified by the sundry peeces of the creation and sounded out by an audible voice to him from God himself Sin being after this manner the voluntary and free act of our first parents not only conceaved but finished in the disobedience by them wrought and persected the wages of it which is death they immediatly receaved For being presently alienated from the life of God or the righteousnes performable by them in that image of God wherein they were created they became dead in trespasses and sins The image of God in man was defaced changed into an image in some sort of the devil All pronesse and inclination of the will to good was forthwith worn off and lost upon the fall and not only so but contrary qualities thereunto possessed the mind Thus mans primitive freedom and alacrity to righteousnes was turn'd into vile subjection and service to the devil and to all manner of uncleane affections and unrighteous actions Neverthelesse this sudden and unexpected chang in man brought about by the subtilty and influencing power of the Serpent by reason of the weaknes of the flesh that discovers itself in mans mutable state is not such but that this deadly wound is capable of healing and man capable of being thereby restored yea to be made not only as good but better then he was at first through the vertue and efficacious power of Christs sacrifice and death which was not only a generall propitiation and atonement of sins past but also for the sanctifying and purifying mans nature for time to come after a more excellent manner through regeneration then it was by creation Unto this regenerate state our first parents were called by the voice and doctrine of the Gospel speaking to them in and on the seaventh day as the only way and means to have prevented the fall and kept out sins entrance upon the nature of man For when God committed to the keeping of Adam his owne soule in the good estate wherein he had set it by making man in his image and after his owne likenes it was not without a most speciall charg to keep this choise jewel safe and vncorrupted at the peril of his very life till chang'd into a better state This God required him to do in the use of the best wayes and means that should be afforded him even by taking fast hold of instruction not letting her goe but keeping her as his life yea keeping his heart above all keepings as that from whence are the issues of life To this end was the tree of life placed in the midst of paradise open to his sight that he might have the view of it And by what was figured and signified to him in this tree was it declared how the keeping of his soule might be by another even by the Son of God or by the Holy Ghost the spirit of truth dwelling in the heart by faith which the worldly or fleshly mind does not cannot receave but by such an act of absolute resignation of itself in obedience to the wil of the Son of God as is more hatefull to it then the worst of evils Yet is there no other way possible for man to keep his soule safe for any long continuance and in the houre of trial when assaulted by the power of darknesse The counsel and instruction given by the word of the Gospel in the tree of life was that if man found upon full debate and consideration within himself that he was not like to continue long safe in his owne hands neither could with certainty keep himself pure and incorrupt as the law required that then he would be content to accept for his guardian and keeper the Son of God himself in whose person the judgmēt and will of man is fixed so as to be the corner stone to al the rest of the heavenly and spirituall building even the effectual means to fix and make immutable in righteousnes both men and angels that wil be prevailed with to let him take the charge of ruling and keeping their hearts in such manner as pleases him This is the only way for man to become free indeed with a better freedom then that of nature abovemention'd even with the freedom wherewith Christ himself is first made free as he is the son of man in heaven who came downe from heaven before he ascended up againe thither John 3.13 This good will and gracious offer of the Son of God figured out in the tree of life our first parents either neglected and slighted or the way of his keeping them did not please them but the suggestions of Satan were rather hearkned unto that they might safely leane to their
enable us to effect this work of faith whereby we may live and also may die to the Lord and in neither sin nor serve our selvs Christ both died and rose againe and is become Lord both of the dead and of the living even in this sense before opened To this agrees what the same Apostle testifies 2 Cor. 4 12.13 compared with 1 Cor. 4.8 13. Here we find the Apostle the father and true elder as to his growth up into Christ strong in the faith and the Corinthians they are the children babes in Christ weak and low in faith but high full and puffed up in their fleshly minds Let us therefore consider the differing characters he gives of the one and of the other though both beleevers such as in their living and in their dying are or may be the Lords Ye now are full sayes Paul or this is your time of being rich and reigning as kings without us but I would to God you did indeed reigne that we also might reigne together with you But it is otherwise with us even a dying time We are troubled on every side perplexed persecuted cast downe alwayes bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus God having set forth us that are the Apostles most strong and eminent in faith as it were appointed unto death and to be made a spectacle to the world to angels and to men We are fools for Christs sake but ye are wise in Christ we are weak but ye are strong Ye are honourable but we are despised So then death workes in us but life in you And we having the same spirit of faith according as it is written I have beleeved and therefore have I spoken we also beleeve and therefore speak knowing that he which raysed up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus and shall present us with you That then which is wrought in men by Christ through the ministry of the outward word by the spirit and life of his first appearance is either restoration-work single or restoration-work joyned and accompanied with true regeneration and eternall salvation Restoration-work single is that which is called the spirit of bondage making but those servants that abide not in the house for ever as having never tasted nor partaken of that freedome wherewith the Son makes those free indeed that he knits into an indissoluble union with himself But restoration-work as it is accompanied with salvation or the birth of the immortal and incorruptible seed of life and righteousnes is that which is called the spirit of adoption of power of love and of a sound or stedfast mind that principle of life begotten and springing up in us whereby we put off that which is mutable and corruptible and put on that which is immutable and incorruptible as well in the inward man of the heart as in the outward man of the flesh We have already shewed that their obedience is accepted with God who are faithfull to their light under the first dispensation of Gods word speaking in them to the inward senses of their mind as was the case of the centurion Such persons in every nation are owned by God as those that fear him and work righteousnes And this feare is in a sense faith for they cannot thus come to God and obey him but they must beleeve that he is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him and hearken to his voyce Neverthelesse this is not the faith that is in the regenerate flowing from the spirit and life of the new creature and working by love but it is the faith which all restored enlightned men may have in conformity to what Adam had before his fall that knew and obeyed the eternall WORD as creatour and maker of both worlds though not as the redeemer and Saviour of men by the blood of the crosse from sin and the wrath attending it This sort of faith is that which flowes from mans exercise of his right knowledg and free will wherein he was created after Gods likenes and did receave the truth in his knowledg but in no fixed permanent love thereof because he was left free to change his mind as seemed good unto himself being in case of his failer therein personally responsible to the penalties and curse of the law For to be created with such a righteous mutable principle of activity and free moving power in the mind was simply in itself good and might be lawfully used to answer the end for which it was given which was by way of voluntary resignation to chang and turne out of that wavering unstable active power though at present righteous into that love that should bind up the moving power of mans Spirit into a stedfast and unmoveable delight and rest in righteousnes and into a fixed and unshaken enmity and aversnes of mind to sin and all evill By this new creation and forming of the spirit of man within him his first freedome is taken from him and done away or it is swallowed up into a freedome much better and more excellent wherein man is made more in Gods image and after his similitude then at the first For though all things were in a good estate with man at first when God made him upright that is to say in a due conformity unto the divine will for the performance of a pure and holy worship and service to God justice and true judgmēt to his neighbour and for the walking in a due sobriety temperance and continence as to himself yet God would have him know he might be better made through a new creation which should more then comprehend all the good of his first make and adde also to it an immutability God did therefore forbid man to trust to the uncertaine riches and fading glory of his first estate and timely to look and make out for a better But in stead of this man notwithstanding Gods prohibition runs himself aground into a very bad and evill condition Out of this forlorne state the first thing that God propounds to him in and by the knowledg of the redeemer is his restoration which God is willing to draw him to by the ministry of Moses and turn him to by the ministry of Eliah even the disobedient to the wisedome of the just to make a ready people prepared for the Lord to meet and receave him as he is given by the father in a better Covenant ordered in all things and sure of which there can never be any breach either on Gods or mans part as there was and wil be againe of the first Covenant how often soever it be repeated and renewed unlesse it end in mans being receaved and taken into the second There is then a ministry of the first Covenant in the hand of the Redeemer Sprinckled with the blood of his crosse which is able to rectify the depravation of things caused by sin and mans first breach with God consisting in a restitution towards mans
the law of God and hath given up itself to the rule of the declared enemy of God the spirit of darknes that rules in the children of disobedience but it is also that by which the outward man of the heart called Coll. 3. the members of the mind that are upon the earth withdraws itself from its due subjection and conformity to the dictates of right reason that are suggested to it from time to time by the enlightned spirit of the mind and gives up itself to vile sensuall lusts and affections that carry the whole man captive to sin and death to commit all iniquity with greedines and run into all manner of unrighteousnes The mind which in both these respects is dead is a downright servant of sin and is free from righteousnes or hath freed itself intirely from under its command and Rule as it is written know ye not that to whom ye yeild yourselvs Servants to obey his Servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousnes The freedom wherein man was at first created was such as whereby he might freely and voluntarily fix himself or rather be fixed in the service of righteousnes through beleeving or in the service of sin by unbeleif By the one he might have bin for ever free from all danger or possibility of serving sin or turning from the service of righteousnes By the other he might in such manner free and discharg himself from the service of righteousnes as never to be receaved into it againe but be for ever condemned to the unchangeable servitude of sin as his punishment The first use man made of this primitive freedom was to free and turn himself out of the service of righteousnes and yeild up himself in subjection to sin And the work of Christ the redeemer is to turn him back againe from the service of sin and power of Satan unto God setting him in as good a condition as at first yea farther to free him for ever from any possibility of becoming a servant to sin any more if the fault be not in himself This restoring renewing and regenerating of man by the power and workmanship of the redeemer in whom we are anew created unto good works is frequently tearmed in scripture a resurrection or quickning from the dead But now this renewing work flowing from the spirit of Christ into fallen man admits of severall measures and degrees which are accompanied with answerable operations and effects upon the mind 1. It turns man back againe from sin to righteousnes conferring upon him the use and exercise of his free will in Gods service upon the like tearms of mutability as he had it at the first creation thereof And to be thus anew created in and by Christ Jesus unto good works is in a degree and measure to be quickned with Christ and raised by him from the death of sin as sin is the transgression of the law They that are under this worke and chang wrought by Christ upon their hearts are yet but under the law or under the rule and command given by God in the first Covenant This ministry of the spirit of Christ doth in Scripture passe under the name of Moses John Baptist and Eliah as the voice of the messenger going before but not the voice of the Son of God himself in his owne person 2dly Therefore there is a farther and an additionall work to this which supposes this chang first to be wrought the operation whereof is to make this a repentance never to be repented of this chang unchangable by bringing the mind into that better state of fredom which is for ever exclusive of sin or of any possibility to chang and return to the service of sin againe This second work enlarges the first making it more entire within itself then ever it was in yeilding subjection to righteousnes as transform'd into the whole will of God with an impossibility to chang or turn in affection from it This is properly the workmanship of the Son himself called Regeneration which carries in it the fredom with which the Son makes all those free indeed whom he causes to receave him in this gift of himself to them likening them unto himself in that lowly meek and subjected frame of spirit wherein as the Son of man he is prepared to se God and to do alwayes that which is welpleasing in his sight Those that are under this second work are properly beleevers having faith of the right kind saving faith And they are therein created by Christ Jesus unto good works with another manner of will and spirit then those are of that are but restored only unto the service of righteousnes and chuse there to be left to work out their owne salvation in the single principles of their rectified nature and free will For in them that freewil offering Rom. 12.1 is made the life of that flesh is offered up in sacrifice which the law of faith commands as the only way to exclude boasting or a being puffed up in the service of righteousnes and indeed to exclude all possibility of finall relapse from God or returne to the service of sin This flesh that would live in us is the power we have to lust and desire move and act of ourselvs in the use and exercise of our primitive free will either to good or evill as likes us best This freedom may either be taken away from us by force or we may be brought through a principle of love begotten in us of our owne choice to resigne it up into the hands of another ordeined of God thereunto to keep and manage for us This is that Christ tells us John 6 37 40. All that the father giveth me shall come to me and it is his will that of all that he hath given me I should lose none but raise them up againe at the last day For I came downe from heaven not to do my owne will but the will of him that sent me And this is his will that he that seeth the Son as he lives not in his owne will but in the will of the father and beleeveth on him living in the will of the Son and not in his owne will should have everlasting life and be raised up at the last day To be taken off then by this gift and drawing of the father from all desire to live in our owne will or be at our owne arbitrary single choise and dispose and to be made willing and contented to live in the will of Christ to be built up in a conjunction of spirit a unity and simplicity in the motion of our will with his will enable us truly to say with the Apostle that now not we live but Christ liveth in us and the life that we now live in the flesh or as yet in the mortal body we live by the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself up to death for us that he
or a threefold cause of the being that is givē unto the creature 1. Of the creatures hidden and secret Being as it subsists and lives in the mind of God by way of his purpose and decree and in his fore knowledg 2. As this seed of creature-being that lives in God is brought into its naturall and proper form of life made a part and member of the first creation in a mutable state 3. As it is changed and translated out of its mutable state and corruptible fashion into a form of being and state of life that is immutable wherein the first creation is not destroyed or annihilated but consummated and brought to its final perfection so as to answer rhe holy end and design of the Creatour who as the potter hath absolute power over his owne clay to make vessels of honour or dishonor as pleases him and in such manner as is exactly consistent with the wisdom and justice of a most holy God The nature of men and angels is formed in Gods likenes wherein they are made with hearing eares seing eyes and working hearts to attend unto and observe the divine oracles delivered to them from the mouth of God as the law under which they are created the rule of their life and actiō to guide them in the passage out of their mutable state into that which is immutable Gods words therefore doe come forth in the threefold dispensation before described visible and intelligible words to their minds or creature-understandings answerable to the state they are found in and to the degree and measure of their growth whereunto they have atteined For there can be no communion or intercourse between God and man but by such divine words as are visible and intelligible to creature understanding signifying such things as their eyes may se their ears heare and that are in themselvs possible and rationall to be obeyed which all Gods laws to man most certainly are Hence is it thar John testifies of the WORD of life itself that it is visible and hath bin heard and seen from the beginning being no new commandement but the old made visible and intelligible first by the book of the creature then by the book of the Scriptures and lastly by the living mouth and heart of Christs manhood assumed into personall union with the eternall WORD and thereby made the brightnes of Gods glory the expresse image of his essentiall mind where the vision at last becomes so plaine to all beleevers that he that runs may read it The humanity or flesh of Christ singly considered is no where in Scripture called the WORD but at most the engraffed WORD For the WORD is that which is made flesh and dwells in us which though after it was born of a woman and found in fashion as a man actually partaking of flesh and blood with the rest of the children it was seen heard and handled as the glory or manifestation of the only begotten Son of God full of grace and truth in the form of a man was actually in Being and life from the beginning which the flesh of Christ was not and was Davids Root the BRIGHT MORNING STAR the Lord the WORD which David in Spirit saw Psal 110.1 when he sayd the Lord said unto my Lord sit thou at my right hand till I make thy foes thy footstool These things premised our way wil be much more open and cleer to proceed in what we have propounded as to a serious search and pursuite after life eternall We are hereby naturally lead into the ensuing method and have our matter pointed out to us for our discussion and enquiry in these following particulars 1. What are the things that are the subject matter of the command delivered to man by the divine WORD and oracles of God that are the law of his mouth visible and intelligible to man by the light and law of nature the light and law of the Scriptures the light and law of faith or the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus And if the matter be one and the same that is declared and made knowne in and under these three dispensations wherein is it that they differ from each other 2. What is that state of mutability which by nature man is brought into Is his mutability lost or no by the fall as wel as his natural righteousnes and purity may he not yet be changed back againe at least to a gradual recovery of his natural righteousnes yea and yet fatther into a more excellent state of life and righteousnes then at first he receaved Is his primitive uprightnes in kind recoverable or no Is it actually and universally restored to all mankind by the blood and ransom of the Redeemer as the means to lead men to repentance and bring them all to the practical knowledg of the truth by inwardly cleansing and purging them from their old sins and setting them in the way of that amendment and newnes of life which God by his law calls for and commands from all men every where 3. Is it possible for man is his mutable state considered as either before or after the fall according to the degree of restoration he does arrive unto to hear and obey the things of Gods law and so to keep the commandements and demean himself in his actings conformable thereunto as not to turn from them or let them depart from his heart all the days of his life untill his translation into his immutable state 4. And lastly What is that immutable state in righteousnes and glory which begins in the day of Christs first appearance and is perfected by his second unto which man is fore-ordeined and through effectuall calling and plantation with Christ in his death and resurrection is prepared and made heir of in his mutable state in order at last actually to inherit and possesse it at Christs seconds comming that other day wherein the Son of Man is to be revealed from heaven which hath its MORNING MIDDAY and EVENing also that immediatly precedes the last day of eternity which hath no division or parts 1. First as for the things of Gods law or matter commanded unto man which God wills that he should heare understand and obey as that on which his life and death depends and does therefore with all plaines and certainty set before him that ignorance or other excuse of any kind may not be pretended by him all is reduced by our Saviour who best knows it into a very narrow compasse Luk 10 28. in his answer to the lawyer that came to tempt him saying Master what shall I doe to inherit eternall life The question does plainly intimate first that some things were to be done by man and that by Gods command and instruction in order to obtein or be made heir of eternall life 2. That so doing or working the work of God the inheritance is sure Christ in his answer denies nothing of this but thinks fit to try the knowledg of
till it put us into the hands of a better and surer guide which is the Son himself who by the voice of his Servant or messenger that he sends before him gives notice of his comming But when he comes himself he teaches the way of God more perfectly the way of knowing and loving God of fearing him and keeping his commandements which is the whole duty of man According to this gradual discovery and revelation of the mind and will of God in his law there are several degrees of growth and age that man is or may be acquainted with in the conformity and obedience that he is to yeild to Gods holy law and commandement 1. First that of childhood signifying the state of mans mutability and unstable righteousnes wherein he is wavering liable to be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine apt to be deceaved 2. The state of youth or years of discerning and settled judgment in those that by faith are strong and have overcom the wicked one in whom the Word of God is abiding and hath taken fast hold and root importing the life of the first resurrection in them at least in the principles thereof over whom the second death is never to have power 3. The state of fatherhood and most ripe years in those that have known him that is from the beginning and are one with him one with the father as Christ and the father are one the church that are in God the father the Bride the Lambs wife by whom is made known the manifold wisdom of God and unsearchable riches of Christ unto the Principalities and Powers in heavenly places the very holy and Elect Angels This importeth the life of the second resurrection in them and the highest ascent into union and communion with God To all these several kinds of growth ages or statures of humane perfection the word and law of God is a Rule suiting itself and commanding the same Duties to be performed as to the knowledg and love which we are to have and bear towards God and towards our neighbour accordingly as the heart is principled and qualified for the performance thereof with a first second or third measure and degree of light and power from God enabling thereunto For that which God requires of man in the obedience he is to yeild unto him is according to what he first gives and causes him to have and not according to what he hath not The commandement therefore of God or the law of his mouth which conteins in it and requires from man his whole duty both towards his God and towards his neighbour is as to the matter of it the same for the rule of mans walking in communion with God either in the first or second Covenant being that which in Scripture is called the law as wel as that which is called the Gospel 1. It is called the law as it is the divine oracle and righteous command of the supreme lawgiver strictly enjoyning exact and compleat obedience and severely punishing the least tittle of disobedience being dispensed in such manner as leaves it to mans liberty and fredom of wil to hear and obey or to refuse and disobey at his owne peril upon the penalties and curse declared in it 2. T is called the Gospel or good tydings as it is the free and gracious condescention or good wil of God appearing towards man which God the Mediatour exercises upon the foresight of what man would doe as left to his owne freewil in and under the law For this in pursuance of his fathers decree does he cleave unto and lay hold of mans nature or the seed of David according to the flesh resolving to bring upon the natural frame of mans Spirit as left to his owne arbitrary choice and freewil a most beneficial and necessary change through which man is prevailed with to give up and resigne back againe that first liberty of his into the hands of his faithful creatour who first gave it and to trust him for the restoring it in such manner and measure back againe as may be best for him and may most certainly and infallibly attein the end for which it was first given which was to fulfil the righteousnes of Gods law Accordingly does he receave it in a new a more excellent and certain manner of hold and exercise wherein it is made impossible for him to transgresse the law of God by sinning and most possible and free for him to run the race of Gods commandements Through this new enlargment and fredom of heart given him by the influencing power of that love which is stronger then death man is so bound up in the wil of God so absolutly subjected to what the law requires as makes him sure to inherit eternal life The living and primitive patern of this obedience is wrought out in mans owne nature in the person of the Mediatour and set before his eyes with an attractive and transforming power to draw man after him and transform him into the same image from glory to glory from the glory of his first creation in conformity to the law in Christs first appearance to the glory of the new creation in conformity to the Gospel in his second And thus Christ enables his beleeving followers to fulfil the law after him who came not to destroy but fulfil it in the Gospel And as some are thus changed by the attractive influence of Christs constreining love others with whom also his Spirit for a season strives by the same Gospel manifestation of him are upon their wilful refusal hardned and fixed in their disobedience To such he becomes a stone of stumbling and rock of offence even to those who after this gracious offer made knowne unto them doe obstinately despise and reject it preferring their first and natural fredom of the Sons of men to this more excellent fredom and glorious liberty of the Sons of God In order to make triall of them herein since the fal Christ hath obteined of the father on their behalf the restoration of that lesser glory and inferiour liberty of nature that ought to be resigned for the greater that excels and is to remain by the price and ransome of his owne blood from whence flowes a conditional remission of al sinners as to sins past and a free and general restoration of them to the priviledg and benefit of their first natural fredom and primitive righteousnes in kind and in such degrees and measure as is requisit and sufficient for the making of such a trial and rendring them without all excuse nothing having bin wanting in him to bring them to repentance and to receave the truth in the love of it He hath given that former sort of gifts to the rebellious also that prove enemies and haters of him in the more excellent gifts and priviledges that he offers them also in a superiour dispensation which cannot be receaved by them without an obedient surrender and losse
mouth These two powers in him are reteined in most absolute agrement and usefulnes each unto the other Answerable to this patern in great is man made in little as to his Spirit and soule with this only difference that the work of mans mind in reference to Gods law and his word and outward action in reference to his mind have not immutability in them but may disagree and chāge from their first harmony and primitive patern set them in God The powerfull impression of this patern on the spirit and soule of man was such as in respect thereof it is said God made man upright or perfect formed his mind in perfect agrement and likenes of operation with his owne mind and in full consent and liking of his law as that which is holy righteous Spiritual and good given for man to obey as his duty He disposed him also by a natural bent and inclination of mind to doe good resist evil love righteousnes and hate iniquity This was the state of mans Spirit or soule as yet seperate from his body and not partaker of that flesh and blood which was afterwards formed out of the dust of the earth The second thing therefore noted concerning mans building or creation is that he also became a living sensual or animalish soule actually clothed with bodily organs that God formed for him out of the dust of the ground Gen. 2.7 And he breathed into his nostrills the breath of life or sent mans soule that was before created in Gods image into that body so appointed and given to it by God as the earth wherein the seed of mans Spirit was planted and the feild in which it was made to grow by reason whereof man became a living soule that is to say by the most intimate union and inhabitation thus wrought by God between the spirit and body of man there was an awakening and bringing into actual exercise the sensual and bodily nature of his mind by sitting to it these meet organs Neverthelesse that which was before in the state of a soule separate an equal and associate to angels comes by this means to be abased and made of little reputation being brought to a kind of equality with the beasts that perish And in like manner as thus the spirit of man was after its first creation embodied and made flesh as a dark shadow of what is done to him t is said to have bin so with the heavens and earth when created yea even every plant of the feild had a state of being before it was put in the earth and every herb of the feild before it grew Gen. 2.4 5 Now through the intimate union and conjunction that mans body is taken into with his soule it is made a living acting speaking creature participant with his rational and intellectual spirit and in fellowship there with meet to have and exercise dominion as God appointed over every living creature that moves upon the face of the earth Thus the bodily life of man became in itself as an Eden the garden of God and the feild that he had blessed and made fruitful unto every good word and work in subserviency and subjection of desire to mans intellectual and angelical part which by the very order and law of nature as having not only priority but eminency of being was given to it both as Lord and husband a superiour and yet a kind of equal joyned with it in such a harmonious consistency that the actings of both natures made up but the compleat and entire Act of mans judgement and will Thus was man created male and female in the spirit and person of Adam before Eve was created as Gen. 1.27 and 2.28.25 do shew And he receaved a charg from God to keep this body in subjection to the dictates of his mind and not suffer it to usurp authority over that part in him which is most the man to wit the angelical or intellectual part When God had thus planted the garden of Eden or pleasure and delight in this spirituall sense as wel as in an outward and literall he puts mans spirit into it giving him the keeping dressing and Rule of it with this expresse command saying of every tree of the garden thou mayst freely eat but of the tree of knowledg of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die For out of the ground the Lord God had made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledg of good and evil Thus was there a paradise without man and within him a garden of pleasant fruit which he might take delight and pleasure in and which he was appointed to dresse and keep in the order wherein God had delivered it over to him and to improve it to the end for which he was brought into it by God And for his instruction herein he was commanded and allowed the use of the outward as wel as the inward senses of his mind with this only caution and Restriction that he should by no means nor upon any pretēce whatsoever hearkē to or obey the voice of his sensual and bruitish nature how rational so ever the judgment of it which is but flesh might seeme to be considered as in its owne single operation tempting and drawing off the cōsent and love of the intellectual part from the streight rule of its duty required in Gods law For the spirit of the mind which is the stronger and better part in man as that which is immortall remains under the morall and perpetuall convictiō of as wel as obligation to the righteousnes required in the law of God the light of which although it may be smoothered for a time cā never be wholly extinguished but is that work of the law in the heart that is and wil be unalterably either excusing and encouraging or accusing and tormēting the mind as cause is give by every mās works It is therefore called the conscience that servs in stead of a thousand witnesses and whē it is awake does alwayes consent to the goodnes and righteousnes that is in the law By this rule therefore sin could not make its approaches but warning would be given and to know evil barely in the abstract without consenting to it or becomming one with it in approbation and delight was not the thing which God forbade him but the feeding on it with consent and delight upon the beholding of its desireablenes in the judgment of the outward senses and as it gratified the bruitish lust and desire of the flesh so as thereupon to be drawn into a compliance and induced to make it the Act of the whole man suffering sin thereby not only to conceave but to be perfected Hence is it said 1 Tim. 2.13 14. that Adam was first formed then eve And Adam or the intellectual and superiour part in man
was not in the Transgression or could not be deceaved by sin but saw cause enough to dissent from and resist it It was the woman the sensual part that was deceaved and was in the Transgression being of such power as not only to entice but so to fetch over the consent of the mind as to make it the act of the whole man And sin being once thus perfected brought forth death All this came by mans ill use of that liberty and freedom he was left unto whilst under the dominion and teaching of the law of workes which commits unto man the keeping and Rule of his owne soule upon severe penalties in case of failer and strictly commands the thing to be done as that which on all accounts it was mans duty to do but layes no prevailing restraint on him to the contrary as the law of faith does The law therefore did in effect shew unto man that the right way of keeping his soule according as is commanded is through the prevailing power of faith whereby man keeps not himself but is kept unto salvation by his faithful creatour to whom he has committed the keeping of his soule in weldoing This was held forth to Adam in the institution of the Sabbath day the day of the spirit and true Rest It is both a day of most powerful restraint and of greatest liberty to man a day that most powerfully and effectually restrains man from sin and all approaches towards it and that as powerfully binds him up unto God and his service which is the most perfect freedom Whilst the bent and inclination of mans will was in its primitive purity he was left freely to the exercise of his owne liking and on that account trusted with the keeping of his owne soule in the state which God at first deliver'd it over unto him which being mutable and not trial-proof in the time of temptation failed But let us now consider a little what it was which God delivered to Adam with such charg and command to keep or to restore to him as good as he found it The Lord committed to his charg and keeping his precious soule and body and his owne image that was by him imprinted and stamped thereupon as his owne coyne and proper goods to be therefore employed for his use to his service and according to his will only Man receaved himself or came thus out of the hands of God without the least blemish and so was to keep himself without any diminution or wast or be exchanged to the profit and advantage of the giver Man thus made in Gods image with a mind like in operation unto Gods might very wel be trusted to doe his owne liking Howbeit there was hereby planted in him at his creation a free principle of wel and evil doing in either of which he had a capacity to act but not properly a freedom by reason of the dominion of the law which he was made under and bound in the obligation of duty to conform unto In this sense man was a servant to the law and under the authority of it even whilst he enjoyed his primitive natural freedom which consisted in the right and priviledg conferred by God upon him of living according to his owne wil and being at his owne free motion and dispose til taken from him forcibly or that he willingly yeild himself up to the service of another as he did at first unto his God most freely and willingly consenting to have his law exercise dominion over him A power then to wil and not to wil at his owne free motion and choice God gave to man upon trust or conditionally that he should be ruled by his law and be careful to keep himself in al his actings most exactly and unchāgably in agreement and harmony with that On this condition Man was at his liberty to do this or that which best liked himself in al other things He had power to kil and power to keep alive in a way of just Rule and magistratical governement He had also in himself a power to doe good and a power to doe the contrary which is evill a power to chang and turn away from doing the good he ought to doe and a power to turn to the evil he ought not to doe A capacity or power in him to doe thus he had from God and it was not sin But his choosing to exercise this left hand branch of his primitive fredom in turning unto and delighting in sin against the law of God which he knew rather then delighting himselfe in the exercise of the right hand branch of his fredom to good in obedience and conformity to the law of God this was his inexcusable miscarriage and sin let him pretend what he wil or can Now although this were mans natural right after this manner to be free as that which in itself is lawfull and good if wel managed and conducted to the end for which it is given yet the being and standing which is given unto man in this fredom is most slippery and dangerous and any long continuance therein is not at al to be coveted after when restored since For this is not the fredom with which God himself is free or with which Christ the Son is free or does make the true heirs of his Kingdom free with nor yet is it the fredom of the holy and elect angels or of the spirits of just men made perfect who yet all are most free agents God himself is the freest of all yet he cannot but will good as of his owne nature bound up unto it He cannot sin or lie Of this fredom doth the man Christ partake and by and under him elect angels and men have their share in it and in and by the exercise thereof doe inherit the life that is eternall and unchangable Such true freedom does import a powerful binding up and restraining of the mind from al possibility of doing evil as evil is taken for sin and the transgression of the law and as powerfull a bent and disposition of will to do what is good right and acceptable in the sight of God without any possibility of hindrance resistance or discontinuance in him who wills or does it The obteining this latter and most excellent fredom is the end for which the first or natural fredom was at all given God would not have his servants in their first make bound up immutably even to that which is their duty but by and with their owne free consent being in a capacity to dissent but at their perill Neither will he have any debarred and for ever excluded from this first fredom but those that wilfully reject it that so the doing good after the power of an endlesse life and the committing of sin with a hardned and impenitent heart may be found in both sorts of men a most free and voluntary act and each receave their reward according to their works By the impression of righteousnes which man
wel of the one kind as of the other if they shal sin wilfully after that they are come to the knowledg of the truth there remains then to them no more Sacrifice for sin but a most certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries even all the dwellers in that earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it but in stead of bringing forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed doe bear thorns and briars which causes them to be rejected makes them nigh unto cursing whose end is to be burned But if the same earth in stead of bringing forth thorns and briars does become ground prepared and made fit to receave the immortal and incorruptible seed by the word of God which abideth and liveth for ever and to bring forth the proper fruits thereof with patience meet for him by whom it is dressed it wil be sure to receave blessing from God even to be blessed with the having of those better things that are accompanied with salvation For he that is faithfull in that which is least by the same grace laying hold on him and keeping him from evil becomes also faithful in much And he that is uniust in the least even in the use of his least natural fredom wil be uniust also in much even in the highest atteinments which he can arrive unto in that his mutable state and whilst in his owne keeping Without blood there is no remission of sins But through the sprinckling of the blood of Jesus who is our passover whose blood speaks better things then that of Abel the wrath and severity that is by the law is either mitigated and all proceedings in the way of revenging justice for a time at least respited and the persons reprieved upon condition of repentance and amendment of life or else totally and finally remitted This latter is the case of al true beleevers that are in Christ Iesus by the new and everlasting Covenant Thus is that saying made good Iam 2 13. He shal have judgment without mercy that hath shewed no mercy and mercy rejoyceth against judgment on behalf of al that are justified frely by grace through the eternal redemption which Christ hath obteined for them So then though al have sinned and come short of the glory of God he hath not so concluded and shut them up in their disobedience and unbeleif but in and through the blood of Christ he is ready to shew mercy of one kind or other unto all I. First such mercy as is intimated in that parable Matth. 18. v. 23. to the end where the lord at first upon the reckoning he made with his servant pronounced judgment upon him commanded him his wife children and al he had to be sold and payment forthwith to be made which in effect was executed in the case of our first parents but afterwards upon the servants repentance and humbling himself beseeching frō his Lord only patiēce and promising he would pay him all his Lord was moved with compassion shewed him mercy in loosing him and freely forgiving him the debt But this mercy as appears after was not that which is called Gods sure mercies such as David had because capable of revocation upon the servants abuse of it in shewing no mercy afterwards to his fellow servant which renewed his Lords wrath again towards him so that he delivered him over to the tormenters til he should pay all that was due unto him He also made it a ruled case for al in the like condition saying If ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother his trespasses so shal my heavenly father sayes Christ doe unto you that is not forgive you your trespasses And Luke 13.7 9. the same truth is confirmed in another parable where the Lord of the vineyard sayes to the dresser of it behold 3 years I come seeking fruit on this figtree and find none cut it down why cumbreth it the ground He answering said Lord let it alone this year also til I shal dig about it and dung it and if it bear fruit well if not after that cut it down This first sort of Gods mercies to sinners is conditional and universal common to the whole posterity of Adam He is moved with a general pity and tendernes towards them in the day of their nativity when no eye hath compassion on them Yea to some of them also he is pleased to shew more particular kindnes so that of his owne accord passing by and seing them in their blood he bids them live he spreads his skirt over them to cover their nakednes makes that the season of his love appearing to them teaching them to deny ungodlines and adorning them with his owne comelines Notwithstanding al this they trusting to their beauty and righteousnes in this dispensation wrote in and put upon them doe fal and make themselvs worse by their apostasy then Sodom or Gomorrha Then the Lord judges it equal that such righteous men as these when they turn from their righteousnes as they finally may and commit iniquity should die in it and also hereupō have all their sins committed before their conversion or change to that state of righteousnes afresh imputed to thē though before God had declared they should not be mētioned but buried in oblivion and that in the righteousnes which they did they should live Thus is the Lord many a time ful of compassion to unworthy sinners whose hearts are not right with him so as to be stedfast in his Covenant Psal 78. He forbears howsoever to destroy them til he hath made proof of them to the utmost Therfore turns he his anger away from them again and again and stirs not up al his wrath He deales with them according to the multitude of his louing kindnesses and the variety of mercies that are in him There are no sort of sinners then who in a lesse or greater degree tast not of these riches of Gods mercies the more of which is shewed to them and abused and sinned against the more is their condemnation heightned For by such demeanour they do crucify to and in themselvs the son of God afresh and put him to open shame counting the very blood of the Covenant wherewith they have bin sanctified an unholy thing and doing despite to the spirit of grace With these kinds of mercies Christ is the saviour of al men a propitiation for the sins of the whole world And thus God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their sins and he not only commands but beseeches al men to be reconciled to him to lay hold on his strength and be at peace with him as not having receaved in vaine the grace he hath begun to bestow upon them But besides these his common mercies declaring his good wil to al men as not taking pleasure in the death of any sinner he hath also his choice and peculiar favour and loving kindnes
for man by the ability and strength of nature given him before the fall to have stood and continued longer in his duty then he did For before any danger appeared of his discontinuance herein or that any temptation thereunto discovered it self a way was set open to him in the tree of life wherein he was taught how he ought to resigne up himself to the teaching and will of another whereby such a change might have bin brought upon him through a new creation and the comming of the son of God to dwell in his heart by faith even that faith which workes by a love stronger then death as would have rendred him unmoveable in his duty and love to God It must needs then be acknowledged to be mans owne fault through unbeleife to resist and harden himself against that working of the holy Ghost which brings upon us the pangs of the new birth as a needfull preparation thereunto This was the folly of Ephraim that unwise son who stayed long in the place of the breaking forth of children Hosea 13.13 as having no mind to endure the pangs required to the birth of the immortall seed This was great folly in our first parents but it is far greater and more dangerous in any restored but to some graduall exercise of the like ability since the fall when proof hath bin made by man at his best estate in his primitive purity what this first ability and sufficiency of nature does amount unto as to the keeping out of sin For what can the man in this case doe that comes after the king If the armour with which our first parents were armed against the great Goliah did upon experience faile them surely though it be prepared to be put on againe by their posterity and attempted anew never so often it is and wil be found alwayes best for us with David to forbeare making use of it with any confidence in such selfsufficiency and to resort to the more sure and effectuall weapons mention'd 2 Cor 10 4 and Eph. 6 11 17. and to put on the whole armour of God to arme ourselvs with the same mind that was in Christ Jesus that may make us inclinable and ready so to suffer in the flesh as to cease from sin or so to crucify the flesh by the powerfull operation of this heavenly mind in and upon us as thereby to put an end to all the motions of sin in our fleshly and sensuall part which is the door by which at first sin entred This brings us to the second particular enquiry in order to the clearing up the third generall Querie in this discourse concerning the losse and deprivall which happened unto man through his sin and disobedience of that naturall ability and aptnes of mind which he had in his primitive purity to love and serve God according to his duty And how far is man by the vertue of Christs blood duly applied to him capable of restitution into the exercise thereof so as to be once more put upon the proof and triall whether in the day of temptation he will hearken to the voice of the gospel by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy Ghost which purifies the heart from all filthines of flesh and spirit not only from the blood or naturall pollution from which before it was not cleansed but also from all those things whereby man could not be cleansed and freed by the law of Moses by the best naturall ability and strength receaved by him in his first creation or renewed and revived in him since In answer to this we shall as little as may be repeat what hath bin mention'd before but rather refer to it Only here is the proper place to reassume the pursuit of what was but lightly touch'd before concerning the conditionall Covenant made by God with Cain after the fall which is necessarily implied Gen. 4.7 and may safely be concluded on 1. Because Cain owned himself a visible worshipper of God and brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. 2. Because God in effect ownes as much himself when he speakes to this purpose if thou doe well I wil be as good as my agreement with thee thou shalt be rewarded But if thou doe ill know that the Covenant I have made with thee is but conditionall and workes wrath upon thy disobedience whereby the punishment of thy sin will hasten apace upon thee and be neer thee even at the door And that thou mayst certainly know thou wilt be without all excuse for thy disobedience if thou persist in it doe not thinke to lay the fault any where but in the free motion of thine owne will which thou art restored to the exercise of For although through the fall thy lusting proud flesh and sensuall part of thy mind hath gotten the Dominion and usurped authority over thy intellectuall and most purely rationall part it shall be subject to thee againe as it ought by the law and order of nature For thou shalt be more and more renewed into a strength and ability to rule over and keep it to its duty if the fault be not in thy self This conditionall Covenant with the benefits of it thus renewed between God and Cain is that which is renewed by the same blood of the Mediatour between Christ and all the posterity of Adam vertually and radically This is that which Christ hath obteined at the fathers hands to be anew entered into with man for his farther proof and triall Unto this ministry Christ is enabled and qualified either by himself or by his messengers and servants to bring back againe the whole world unto God according to that invitation of his Isai 55.1.2 Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters and he that hath no mony come ye buy and eat yea come buy wine and milk without mony and without price Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good and let your soule delight itself in fatnes All this yet lies short of the saving grace and sure mercies of the new and everlasting Covenant which is propounded by itself afterwards v. 3. So then thus far the Gospell is and may be receaved by Cain and those of whom God swears in his wrath that they shall never enter into his Rest Unto these the promise is made conditionally of entering into Rest and they fall short of it through hardnes of heart and unbeleife The WORD preached unto them does not profit them as to eternall salvation because they are not united to it by faith or have not the inseperable union contracted between the Son of God and them in the Covenant ordered in all things and sure which true saving faith workes The word therefore and command of God consisting in a conditionall and in an absolute Covenant from the beginning are the same two Testimonies of the
law and Gospel still or rather the two Testaments that are in force with mankind by the death of the Testatour the Lord Jesus Christ By the first of these man is renewed and restored out of the fall and brought in some degree to the fruition and exercise of his first righteousnes and freedome of will in order to the making proof and triall of him once more And by the second of them he is regenerated and begotten of the immortall seed into an immutability in righteousnes and glory in a life that is from the dead uncapable ever to be lost or faile more These two Testimonies and Testaments of God are visible words inward spirituall words and lively oracles that create their owne suitable organs and vessells in the minds of men for their reception And there is an inward sight of them to be had by man as well as an outward hearing to which purpose it is sayd 1 Joh. 1.1 That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life that declare we unto you That which John saw heard and handled was from the beginning and was seen heard and handled from the foundation of the world at sundry times and in divers manners under former dispensations till at last the dark shadows of him vanished and the true light itself began to shine and dawne in his owne personal appearance first in the flesh and then afterwards in the Spirit There are therefore inward and spirituall senses whereby the man of God sees heares tasts savours and handles the word of God Such senses there must be because there is an inward as well as an outward man of the heart which must not want his due powers and faculties any more then the other For since the words themselvs are divine even words of spirit and life how can they be otherwise perceaved then by senses suited to their nature spirituall senses distinguished from those of the animalish outward man of the soule which is not at all skilled in that manner of knowing and discerning From the exercise of spirituall life and the senses thereof proceeds the spirituall tast savour and approbation of those divine words that are the significations of Gods will and law to us Unto such experienced men skilled in the words of truth we may appeale as to the true and full significancy of divine oracles which the disputer of this world in the perverse and presumptuous use of his naturall senses and understanding contradicts and blasphemes doe you not see this truth doe you not handle with your hands this Word of life do you not tast that the Lord is gracious This is the much more excellent way of understanding the Scriptures when after such a spirituall manner we relish handle se tast and have a share in what we know of the word of God as the Apostle prayes Phil. 1.9 For this I pray sayes he that your love may abound in knowledge and in all judgment or in every spirituall sense He that was from the beginning is Christ the living WORD of God the WORD wherein was life and that life the light of men even of every man that comes into the world He is the light of men in and under a threefold dispensation or manner of ministry He is the word of God God to men that makes with them either a conditionall and dissoluble Covenant or an absolute and everlasting Covenant that can never be dissolved The first of these is the word of the beginning by which God begins to make himself knowne and declare his will in his law to all men that law by which they must one day be judged The second is the word of the oath conteining a free promise to some and a gracious receaving of them into his love therein to abide for ever but a finall and judiciall rejection of others concerning whom he therein swears that they shall never enter into his Rest but be given up to the wayes that they have chosen and fixed in their owne delusions in the everlasting chains whereof he binds them up and reservs them with the fallen angels to the judgment of the great day This is that which is the end and consummation-work both wayes to all that have passed under the first Testament or conditionall Covenant Christ considered as he is the word of the beginning the author and minister of the conditional Covenant and of the life and quickning proper thereunto hath a comming forth in light and life unto men which is called his first appearance which he dispenses in the capacity of the promised seed pursuant to the manifestation of Gods will unto man in paradise immediatly after his fall He is therein declared the saviour and redeemer of man he by whom alone is remission of sins and all those that beleeve not on him shall perish in their sins For as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wildernes so hath the father provided that the WORD made flesh be lifted up in the sight of all men and preached to them that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And God would have men know that he so loved the world as that he gave his only begotten Son to take and beare away their sins and lead them into the way of salvation in stead of condemning them upon the fall of our first parents as he might justly have done He then that beleevs in the Son of God is not or shall not be condemned But he that beleeveth not that is receavs not his word in the love thereof is condemned already because he hath not beleeved in the name of the only begotten Son of God The justice of such condemnation will shew itself in this that when this light is come into the world men have chosen and loved darknes better then light yea to discover the evill of their mind they hate the light and as neer as they can shun all appearance of it least they should be reproved thereby and convinced of their evill deeds and be converted and God should heale them But how is Christ the saviour and redeemer lifted up before the eyes of all men and how comes he with light into the world or into the mind of the naturall man who receavs not the things of the spirit of God but accounts them foolishnes Yea he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned and are therefore too deep for him to fathom too high and heavenly for him to reach being destitute of spirituall senses and discerning suitable thereunto By way of answer to this we must be carefull rightly to distinguish and divide the word of truth which as hath bin said hath a first voyce and the light of its first appearance as also a second voice and the brightnes of a second comming It is by means of the first voice and the light and life ministred in
primitive purity and the remission of sins past and this by a repentance from dead workes and a returning by faith unto the living God Moses began this ministry John Baptist continued or rather renewed it as the immediate fore-runner unto Christs comming in the flesh and Elias in spirit and power or the spirit and power of Elias that is yet to come as the latter raine of Christs first appearance shall cary on this work of restoration to its perfection and immutability in the hearts of Christs slaine witnesses and be as the fore-runner and bright morning-star that is to usher in the sun-shine of Christs second comming Then will Christ come forth in his owne person to celebrate publickly before the eyes of the whole creation the marriage of the lamb with his bride This latter Elias is he that must destroy that painted Jezebel which puts Naboth to death by the authority of Ahab Revel 2 20 22 the earthly lying spirit of the false righteousnes in the mouth of the false Prophets which by the secular power in all ages puts to death Naboth the spirit of true Prophesy in the mouths of Christs faithfull Servants by false witnesses to the treading downe and keeping under the true Prophets of God during the time times and half a time foretold by Daniel and the Apostle John And as this Elias must rectify the worship of God so must he set in order the man towards his neighbour He must turn the heart of the fathers to the children and of the children to the fathers putting an end to all differences betweene the spirituall fathers and their children and the spirits of the later Prophets shal be subject to the former Prophets For when this Elias comes he will untie all knots answer all objections and resolve all doubts In a word he wil bring back againe the whole man unto his God He will restore the naturall man to his right He will also prepare and point out the way unto the heavenly man for the obteining of his right He will recover all Edom to the house of Israel and the kingdom shal be the Lords Obadiah v. 21. And why should we doubt or despair but such a time there wil be when things which now are have long bin and will yet be more turn'd upside downe all out of order all confounded shal be restored and brought to right againe Have not all the Beasts had their reigne and shall not Christ have his Shall not his kingdom come and will be done in earth as it is in heaven unlesse we pray so without faith and hope Have we not a promise that there shal be times of refreshing from this heavenly presence and appearance of the Lord shall not a generall restitution of all things be the effect of such his appearance in the very dawnings thereof Were this to be mans work no doubt would be made of it O we of little faith shall we then doubt of it when God himself undertakes it the mighty God the Lord the Redeemer that is yet to come out of Zion to turn away iniquity from Jacob in a spirit and power that all must bow under and fall before Let us then upon whom the ends of the world are come lift up our heads in the sight of the neernesse of this redemption which is hastning apace upon us in despite of all the opposition that is can or shal be made against it This then is that which we are to understand by the restoration-work which God begets carries on and perfects by the ministry of the outward and written word as the handmaid and servant to the sons appearance himself in spirit It is that whereby man is first brought back againe to God and to himself in the exercise of his right judgment and freewill Then is he also ledd out of that into the love which he that hath dwells in God takes up his rest in the divine nature becomming the habitable part of the earth wherein the divine nature inthrones itself and dwells as in his temple and resting place This is the land of Emmanuel the true Israell's land the land of promise in the spirit the city that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God Christ himself being the cheif corner-stone thereof It is therefore the kingdom that cannot be shaken at the comming on thereof all that is moveable must be taken out of the way and give place He that is least in this kingdom is greater then John Baptist though he were greater then all the other prophets that went before him the meaning is in reference to this restoration-work which is the proper effect of John Baptists ministry through which Gods Covenant is repeated and renewed with man in the blood of the redeemer after which a breach between God and man is still in possibility and danger to happen and the spirit of man may be broken off from him with whom it had bin made one as a member of the same body For by the power of this restoring healing ministry of the first Covenant taking force by the death of Christ the Lord does create or make man againe of one mind one will and heart with him according to the law of the first creation which is throughout conditionall and may be made void through mans default as appears by what Paul and Barnabas speake to the contradicting and blaspheming jews Actor 13.46 It was necessary that the word of God should first have bin spoken to you but seing ye thrust it from you and judg yourselvs unworthy or shew yourselvs not desirous of eternal life lo we turn to the gentiles Oh how liable is the heart of man under this conditional Covenant though never so far advanc'd to be suddenly broken off againe from God by its hope and trust in the creature or in the uncertain riches that are either within us or without This the Apostle Paul well knew and therefore charg'd them that are rich in this world not to trust in the uncertainty of riches no not in the very inward riches of the heart as enriched with the restored mutable principles of righteousnes but in the living God the WORD that is in our heart and in our mouth in the person of Christ the enduring substance that never failes nor fades away Christ says wo be to the rich to wit that trust and put confidence in any the above-mentioned fading riches within man or without Againe he says Blessed are the poor in spirit who doe resigne the activity life and way of working righteousnes and worshipping God in the fading restored mutable principles of the first creation growing weak feeble and low in all such wayes even of doing well wherein man hath whereof to boast in order to a growing rich and strong in the Lord or in the new-creature life activity and way of worshipping God and working righteousnes in spirit and truth in the steady and unchangable principles of everlasting righteousnes We cannot serve two
masters God and Mammon We cannot take that delight and pleasure in any creature or seeming present good whatsoever which is due from us to God in Christ only but it breaks off our spirits from the God of life To delight in and prefer the way of worshipping God and working righteousnes in the mutable fading humane creaturely principles of our first creation when restored before the performing all in the unchangable divine and never fading principles of the new creation where God comes to work all our works in us and for us this is a very high provocation of God the highest and most deeply delusive and unperceaved idolatry in preferring the creature before the creatour who is God blessed for ever Mans disobedience and failing then with God as to the performance of the condition of the first Covenant renewed and brought into force againe by the blood of the redeemer is that which since the fall does cause a new breach between God and man when it is willfull working that wrath which the Sacrifice of Christ cannot appease And man is not free nor safe from the danger of such wilfull unexpiable sinning and so of that judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries whilst he is under the dominion and jurisdiction of the law And under it he is so long as he is alive to God but upon the condition required in the first Covenant which makes him a debtour to the whole law qualifying him with that naturall ability and exercise of free-will unto which when he trusts as he is too apt to do takes up his rest and engages in the single strength thereof to performe what the law requires then he falls and provokes God to wrath This will he never be able finally to prevent or avoid whilst he cleaves to and takes up his rest in the life and activity of his owne free-will for the enabling him to keep Covenant with God how rich in stock soever he may at present seem to be therein His only way therefore is to passe or rather suffer himself to be translated out of these his mutable principles into that love and stedfastnes of heart in Covenant with God which is the end of the commandement and proceeds from a pure heart good conscience and faith unfeigned Now of those that are alive unto God in the awaken'd principles and renewed life of the first Covenant by repentance from dead works and faith in God the Redeemer and saviour of all men and this by the voice of Christ through the hearing of the outward and written word there are severall sorts the cheif of which only we shall mention 1. Those who are diligent hearers willing and zealous obeyers of what they learn receave and drink in from the holy Scriptures which they are convinced is the mind and will of God written for their direction and instruction in righteousnes either by their owne private reading or by the outward ministry thereof Upon this they make their boast of God and of the chang wrought in their hearts through repentance and faith of their walking with God in the purity of his worship and towards their neighbour righteously according to the commandment delivered unto them Hereby they do indeed come to be quickly and deservedly distinguished from the prophane world having the forme of knowledg and of the truth in the law and written word into the mould whereof the whole man is by them endeavour'd to be cast But all this is but of little availe to them that stay here and rest in the letter of the Scriptures which are not he but testify of him that is come himself in his owne personal appearance God manifested in flesh And he afterwards died and rose againe according to the Scriptures and revealed himself in spirit the better comforter and anointing which teaches all things All this the voice of the Scriptures points at and sends those unto that desire to be made partakers of the life that is eternall But those that hear or obey not this voice do provoke So that though a promise be left unto them of entring into the true rest they fall short of it through unbeleif and pleasing themselvs with a false rest and satisfactiō in this first degree of restoration-work and lively change which is and may be wrought by the ministry of the outward word to the bringing of men into a mutable state of righteousnes which they are upon all occasions in danger of losing and falling from how sure soever they esteem themselvs to be 2. A second sort of hearers there are obeyers of the holy commandment delivered unto them not only by the testimony and preaching of the written word but by the knowledg of the Son himself Christ in spirit which is a degree farther then the first goe who manifests himself to them in a likenes and glory that is bread and sutable food to give life to the world or to man in his first nature Such practicall knowledge and sight of Christ is able to heal and restore man from the leprosy of sin causing him to escape the pollutions of the world and to be washed from his old sins Concerning such is it said that it is impossible for them having bin thus enlightn'd having tasted the heavenly gift bin made partakers of the holy Ghost or Christ in spirit and tasted the good word of God and Powers of the world to come so far as the natural man can be heightned and rais'd to the capacity of on this side true Regeneration if or when they fall away to renew them againe unto repentance The reason is because they do eminently crucify the Son of God afresh in themselvs and put him to open shame yea they trample him under foot accounting the blood of the Covenant whereby they were sanctified an unholy thing and doe despite to the Spirit of grace These before their personal fall or apostasy are not properly under the spirit of bondage as meer servants but are rather children of that kingdom out of which they may be cast who strivingly may seek to enter in at the streight gate after an undue manner and so shall not be able to enter When once the master of the house is risen up and hath shut to the door and they standing without knock at the door desiring admission and alledging for themselvs that they have eaten and drunk in Christs presence and that he hath taught in their streets his answer to them wil be I know you not whence you are depart from me all ye workers of iniquity to the place where shal be weeping and gnashing of teeth You shall se Abraham Isaac Jacob and all my true prophets in the kingdom of God and yourselvs that have in one sence bin the children of the kingdom thrust out Luk. 13 24 28. Mat. 7 21 23. and Math. 8 12. These are branches in Christ the true vine and good olive tree partaking of his sap and fatnes for a season But
in the Sacramentall signes of his death on which he appoints them to feed as so manifesting him unto them till he himself come in his owne personall appearance in spirit to shew them the same mystery in the substance it self or originall patern Of the above-mention'd sorts of beleevers partaking of the light and life of Christs first appearance from the voice and testimony of the scriptures together with the sacramentall signes of his death instituted by commandment from God in his written word does the visible Christian church consist that hold themselvs to the rule of the Scriptures for their guide and are faithfully obedient in putting into practice what is therein revealed Amongst these there alwayes is as we have shewed a select number of hidden and beloved ones kept through the power of faith unto salvation without whom the rest would be as Sodom and Gomorrah And for the sake of this small remnant that truly and properly are Gods heritage out of all the rest as the new wine in the cluster it is that the Lord sayes destroy it not for there is a blessing in it These are they that being in and under the law of the Scriptures the teaching of Gods outward and written word shal be judged by this law as to the things they are found failing in and as to their comming short of the end set before them in this ministry Now the end of it is to bring them by faith to the sight and fellowship of Christ himself speaking in spirit as he is the word of the beginning and gives forth the light of the glory of God in his owne face with which he shines in the hearts of his people This comes to passe when once it pleases the father to reveal his Son in us setting him as a living patern before the eyes of our faith that in unity and similitude of spirit with that wherein the works are done by him in himself we may fulfill the law of God after him and be brought to live and dwell together in the same love which hath its season of dawning in the heart as the true day-star to prepare the soule to meet with Christ in the glory of his secōd appearāce Concerning these is it said Rom 8 1. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit When they have begun in the spirit they do end there also and draw not back to be perfected in the flesh As they live in the spirit so their care and practice is to walk in the spirit rejoycing in Christ Jesus and having no confidence in the flesh Their praise is of God not of men They lose the prayse and honour of men because they seek both of them from God only They are strangers and pilgrims with him on the earth as all their fathers were They sojourne in tents in the outward land of Canaan the streets of the visible church and various self-chosen wayes of visible worship which Christians of different judgments walk in These invisible saints have their eye set upon the heavenly countrey and building that hath foundations which is the workmanship wrought in God the engraffed WORD and by him is held forth to the eye of that faith that is the evidence of things unseen and is able to espy for us this land of promise in the spirit whilst it is yet at a great distance and very far off There is evidently set before this eye of our faith the crucified spirit of Christ as he offered up himself in sacrifice to the will of the father learning obedience by the things that he suffered in denying his owne will that we may tread in the same steps dying with him that we may live with him and suffring with him that we may reign with him Through such fellowship with him in his suffrings and conformity with him in his death we shall be found still advancing and pressing forwards if by any means we may attein the resurrection of the dead or that redemption of the body which is atteinable in this life by those that diligently presse after the mark for the prize of their high calling which is in Christ Jesus This resurrection and redemption of the body will be experimented upon the rising of the witnesses and then better understood In the mean time the eagle-eyed beleever lives upon the dead carkasse of Christ crucified seen so in spirit And he is content as a mēber of his dead body to be made the scorne and off-scouring of the world a member of the forsaken Zion that dwells in the feild in a wildernes-state solitary and alone that no man regards because his dwelling is in the dust in expectation of rising together with Christs dead body Untill that season this sort of beleevers in stead of being found within the pale of the visible church do follow Gods invitation of them into the secret chambers of his presence and do dwell in his house a building not made with hands in the person and spirit of Christ where they behold his beauty shutting the doors about them as to any visible entercourse with the worldly Church Thus they hide thēselvs as it were for the little moment that his indignation is to last and be exercised on thē by the power and during the reigne of the Beast Blessed are those that thus die in the Lord though by the world called and accounted phanatick waiting for the brightnes of his second comming He that hath ears to hear let him hear To shut up thē and close the ministry of the day of Christs first appearance as after this manner the Redeemer hath bin lifted up in it and the work of common and temporary as well as of peculiar and eternall Redēption hath bin wrought by him and made manifest to all sorts of men and of beleevers in the world we shall now come in the next place to a distinct consideration of the fourth and last generall head of enquiry above mentioned in this discourse which is concerning the very being life and constitution of the new creature or that immutable state in righteousnes and glory that begins in the day of Christs first appearance and is perfected by his second 4. The fourth generall enquiry then is about the immutable state of life and righteousnes in the new creatures constitution or that change which is brought upon man by the new creation The new creatures life is founded as hath bin shewed in the birth of the fathers love in the soule Of this love are they born who are by Christ the immortall seed layd hold on cleaved unto and apprehended in that intimate and inseperable marriage-union in spirit which is never to be dissolved in the Covenant ordered in all things and sure that is contracted in his person between the father and the Son through the holy Ghost Where ever this union is there is Gods love there is Christ inseperably united to that soule
for good And although this kind of life and union do lie hid and concealed as it may for a long time asleep in the vessell of the mind as Christ was in the ship when it was in danger to sink with the waves yet by it is the soule Kept and seperated to the Lord as Paul was from the womb notwithstanding which he walked as a Pharise nay as a persecutour of the true church till this seed of Gods love revealed itself in him This is the first degree of the new creatures hidden and concealed state and this foundation of God is sure for he knows who are sealed with this his living seal from the womb though neither as yet themselvs know it or any other but only the Father and the Son The second degree of new creature life arising from the immortall seed of Gods love sealed as yet and concealed in the heart of the beleever is as it yet lies undermost and at botome suffring Esau the elder brother to come out first into view It gives way to the restoration-work which puffs up the flesh in making the spirit of the naturall man full and rich in his first abilities of pure nature and exercise of his freewill Such a saint girds himself as peter had done when he went whithersoever he would He wil be a very active couragious follower of Christ whilst he works miracles and all the world runs after him yea he will promise faire also to goe even to prison and death with him but in the hour and power of darknes the faith he acts upon this bottome and all his other graces faile and abide not the triall unlesse the seed which lies undermost appear and shew forth its preserving overcomming and never failing power In this 3d state or degree of new creature life we are with the Corinthiaus such as are carnall and babes in Christ but cannot properly be addressed unto as spirituall Christians We are ready in this state with good Samuel to say of Eliab the elder brother surely the Lords anointed is before us in the restoration-work wrought by the spirit of Christ in our soules We are little aware that the true David the man after goes owne heart the inward man which feeds upon that which is not corruptible lies hid and is not yet seen as he is but under a veyle only and as through the lattesse In these true saving faith is but weak and low not knowne rightly to themselvs but upon grounds that may and will fail them A third state or degree of this new birth and new creature life is when upon being found triall-proof the love of God comes to spread itself abroad in the heart by the holy Ghost when the seed which is at the bottome and lies undermost works and removes out of the way him that lets every impediment and weight that presses downe It comes now to circumcise the foreskin of the flesh which is the cover and veile under which it hath layn so long hid bringing under and laying low the fleshly man in us teaching him subjection and shewing him that law by which the elder is to serve the yonger and come behind but no longer to lead the way or be preferred before him For the naturall man to come under this discipline is the great crosse which is so fiery and dreadfull to flesh and blood the cup which if it were possible every one would avoyd But 't is by this means that the naturall man is made subject and becomes a meet vessell for the use of his Lord. And now when we are thus in weaknes according to the flesh most low broken and crucified then are we strongest after the spirit and the work of faith springing up with vigour is fulfilled in us with power so comes it to be cleerly seen to ourselvs though yet very much hid as to others When it hath once rooted and grounded the inward man in this love it will diffuse the good ointment to the very shirts of the garment and cloath the beleever with change of raiment that as the soule is made all glorious within the outward man may be glorified also and Christ not only admired in the heart but glorified in and by the mouth of the same beleever which is the fourth degree of new creature life This fourth and last degree of the perfecting of the love of God in us is reserved to the day of Christs second appearance called also the day of the manifestation of the sons of God which we shall now in the next place enquire into and apply ourselvs to search after according to such discovery thereof as God hath bin pleased to make knowne By way of preparation to this enquiry let us take notice of what we find described and foretold of it by the Prophet Hosea chap. 6. v. 2 3. After two dayes he will revive us that is in the end of the second day In the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight Life from the dead and immortality shall be brought to light in us The day of Christs Kingdom in the spirit considered as the going forth of it is prepared as the morning which encreases more and more to a perfect day distinguishes itself into two distinct seasons It comes upon us and to us as the raine as the former and the latter rain upon the earth In the former it is a Kingdom of patience in the latter a kingdom of power The Kingdom of Christ in spirit is that stone which whosoever falls upon shal be broken to peices or they shall split and break themselvs in peeces that fal upon it whilst it is yet but the Kingdom of his patience in himself or his suffering servants who amidst all their sufferings in the flesh do remain in spirit true members of the Kingdom of the stone lively stones of Christs spirituall building abiding firme and unmoveable under all trialls of persecutiō and opposition But on whomsoever this stone or Kingdom of Christ shall fall in the day of its power when it becoms a mountain filling the whole earth it shall grind them to powder It will make them as the chaffe of the summer threshing floore which the wind of Gods just anger will so carry away that no place wil be found for them The beginning of the third day mention'd Hos 6. seems cleerly to be about the time of Christs ascension and day of Pentecost when the former rain of the spirit came downe or some few years after at the final ruin of Jerusalem and the jewish Kingdom To know the certain period of the second day and beginning of the third will much conduce to the better forming of our judgments as to the seasons of this Kingdom that are yet to come We may hereby also gain some sight into the two dayes that are past and the distinguished parts of time that the holy Ghost does intend and signify to us by those two former dayes By the
might bring us thus to live in and with him The life that we thus live is through his enlivening and inspiring motiō who for this very ēd gives himselfe to us in such an intimate and unchāgable uniō as makes him our very life or the activity and strength through which we act and live Christs thus being given to us and receaved by us amounts unto true regeneratiō and our being made willing to give up ourselvs thus unto him is the presenting our bodies or lusting fleshly mind a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable to God This is to make our living soule an offering or reasonable service to God even the freewill offering of those reasonable first created powers of discerning and desiring which however refined do remaine yet corruptible till the transforming work of true regeneration hath passed upon them and this with Abel's is reputed by God and therefore certainly in itself is a much more excellent sacrifice then that which Cain offered or indeed can be offered by any that retaine the life of their owne will as the principle of all their motion and activity in Gods service be it otherwise never so conform to the letter of the commandement They that are under this second work and chang have the Son of God in them so as to be himself the keeper of their soules by oath never to part with or give up his interest in and Rule over them unto any but the father After this manner to receave have and possesse the Son is to beleeve and have life eternall by the new and everlasting Covenant And not thus to receave the son is the unbeleif which when once it takes root springs up with that bitternes and enmity against the principle operation and Testimony of saving faith in true beleevers and so against Christ himself who rules in their hearts by faith as amounts in conclusion to the very second death For it carries them on in to that irrecoverable impenitency and hardnes of heart for which God swears they shall never enter into his Rest To be quickned and risen with Christ in this second work and chang wrought in the soule by him is that resurrection into life which never is to se corruption or change more And he that is thus borne of God doth not commit sin that is the sin of unbeleif above mention'd because his seed remaineth in him which keepeth him from so sinning and the evil one toucheth him not This heavenly immortall seed and birth of the life that is incorruptible keeps the beleever in all trialls and temptations fixed like a rock and as mount Sion that cannot be moved from holding fast the confidence of a lively hope to the end Yet where this resurrection and immortall life is in the seed it does not suddenly appear or shew itself in its owne likenes according to the mightines of the power that works in us But however it is the power of faith through which we are kept unto salvation It is that which after we have passed over the day of temptation the suffering season will be sure to come forth in its powerfull operation and make us perfect stablish strengthen and settle us Hence is it that Christ sayes if we have faith that is of the right kind but as a grain of mustard seed we shall find it to be of such a growing encreasing nature that though it be not presently discerned yet by it shall we be at last enabled to remove mountains and nothing shal be impossible unto it This is Christs meaning also when he sayes that he will raise up such beleevers at the last day that is in the day appointed for the manifestation of these Sons of God in which they shall appear as indeed they are to every eye And the eye that sees them shall acknowledg them the eare that heares them shall bear witnes unto them that they are the seed that God hath blessed not only by strengthning them with might in the inner man and rooting them in love but visibly raising them up in his power to the rendring of them mighty in word and deed With this kind of resurrection that shal be visible in the eyes of enemies and all beholders it is that Christ will raise up the sons of God before described and cause them to live in his sight in this third day at the breaking forth of the brightnes of his second personall appearance as the Kingdom of his power with which as with the latter rain he will visit and refresh the habitable part of his earth and at same time burne like an oven in flames of fire to the consuming and destroying of all his adversaries The way that God will take to make his sons manifest in this day is by a powerfull work of redemption that shal be wrought and passe upon the outward as wel as inward man of the heart upon the speaking acting powers as well as upon the understanding and intuitive faculties of the mind to the freeing of them both from the bondage of corruption and stating the whole person of the beleever in the glorious freedom of righteousnes and true holines 7. This shal be effected first by the ministry of the holy Angels as the Elias that is to come who like the foure winds of heaven shall breath with their influencing gales of prophesy upon the spirits of all men but especially upon beleevers to the gathering them up into a life of spirit and causing them to be as it were absent from the body in order to be present with the Lord whilst yet in the body 2. Secondly This work shal be carried on by the revelation of the son himself from heaven for the changing of our vile bodies into the likenes of his most glorious body We find Mark 1.1 c. that John Baptists ministry though but the messenger sent before Christs face to prepare his way in preaching the baptisme of repentance for the remission of sins is called the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the son of God And the Evangelist luke chap. 1.15 describing that which qualified John for his ministry tells us in the words which the angel spake to his father Zachary that he was filled with the holy Ghost from the womb for the rendring him a fit messenger to usher in the comming of Christ in the flesh by going before him in the spirit and power of Eliah whose work is to restore all things making them right and streight but he is to leave the work of regeneration and ministry of the new creature being and life to the son himself The subject which both these ministries cheifly respected in the day of the dispēsation of Christs first appearance was the inward man of the heart for the rooting and grounding it in love and strengthning it under the many and various trialls of the crosse and temptations that were to be undergone For beleevers are to beare about in their bodyes the markes of
shall first destroy all his enemies even death itself and shall end with the universall resurrection and and passing of the finall sentence winding up all in the resigning up of his Kingdom to the father that God may be all in all Thus the thousand years is no distinct time from the day of Judgment neither before it nor after but the same with it the whole time during which this great day of judgment does continue in the very beginning whereof Antichrist shall finally be destroyed and not before These therefore in Scripture are called the times of Christs Kingdom wherein he will shew himself the blessed and only Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and this for the space of a thousand years in the last period of which comes the last and finall sentence before mentioned to be pronounced and executed The reason therefore why the excellent promises above recited are not yet performed is twofold 1. The times for their performance are not yet fully come though very neer But most certaine it is as we have heard that they shall and will come 2dly Because the seed also to which they are made is not yet come to be made manifest as they shal be in distinction from all counterfeits and false pretenders which say they are Jews and are not but do lie This discrimination and certaine cleare discovery of the true seed of God from the false will be begun to be made by the ministry of Eliah or the ministry that shall rise up in the spirit and powers already discribed This excellent ministry must and wil be attended with a church of saints answerable which shall consist of the risen witnesses the dry bones that this spirit of prophesy brings out of their graves from the foure winds of heaven causing them to stand againe upon their feet an exceeding great army All of them are to be quickned by the means of this powerfull and glorious ministry with a spirit of life from God that enters into them and shews itself to be that life from the dead in them which is never more subject to corruption It is unto these also that God sayes by a great voyce from heaven which they are fitted with ears to heare come up hither and they do accordingly ascend up to heaven in a cloud their enemies beholding them or rather heaven is brought downe into their knowledg and possession here on earth whilst as yet they are clouded with their mortall body which nevertheles shall at last be changed in a moment and they not se death In the meane time they shall experience their very mortall body freed from the bondage of corruption and restored to the primitive purity glory use and serviceablenes unto the mind which it had in paradise in the persons of our first parents before the fall And to these shall it be given to se the opening of the heavens long since promised by Christ and the temple of God that is there opened also and in the temple the arke of the Testament both which Revel 15.5 are put together and called the temple of the tabernacle of the Testimony in heaven which in that day shal be opened the true tabernacle or sanctuary which God pitch'd and not man Heb. 8.2 In this temple dwelleth the fulnes of the God head bodily the vision whereof is to be made plaine to the eye of our sensuall part or to our inward bodily senses that by seing the mind of God in such legible characters in the spirit and person of Christ the like mind may be found and seen in all that are his who are then to appeare in the same likenes by seing him as he is That which Christ is and in spirit shal be seen to be as the mind of the father is wrought out in him the Apostle Paul points out Philip. 2.5 c. 1. He is in the forme of God the WORD of life who was in the beginning was with God and was God And thus considered he accounts it not robbery to be Gods equall 2dly In the dispensation of the fulnes of time the same that is in the forme of God is also found in fashion as a man and is made flesh with the use of a living soule in the very earthly and outward senses of it bearing the form and likenes of the first Adam in his primitive purity 3. He that thus descended into flesh and the lowermost parts of his habitable earth in which earthly make and nature he became inferiour to angels for the suffering of death is the same that out of this does ascend and is exalted far above all heavens by being made in his humane spirit soule and body the temple wherein all the fulnes of the God head dwells bodily and a meet vessel to receave possesse and be the minister of it unto others He is the WORD of life the brightnes of the fathers glory the expresse character of his substance by which this manhood is sealed and made heavenly partaking with the living WORD as he is the Angel of Gods presence in whom is Gods name He is the cheif and highest Angel and as such is head of all principalities and power And over and above all this in his archangelicall estate he is the true Michael Gods equall the man that is made Gods fellow or second in the same divine throne of glory In these three cheif particulars Christ the temple of God in heaven shal be seen and made manifest as that which he is and will witnes himself to be in the hearts of all true beleevers the sons of his love that are to be are his likenes and to be seen with his name and superscription upon them In this respect it is that he hath given that commandement 1 John 4 20 21. that he who loveth God in Christ love his brother also which those that doe not will thereby prove themselvs liars if they say they love God For how can he love God or Christ whom he hath not seen that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen There is a day comming when that which Christ wil be seen to be in himself he wil be seen to be also in his members that shal be receaved and gathered unto him as joynt heirs and possessours of his fathers love and glory When Christ who is their life shall so appear they shall also appear with him in glory They shall no longer remaine in their hidden and concealed state wherein they are judged according to men in the flesh whilst they live according to God in the spirit Nor shall they any longer be like Princes walking on foot whilst Servants ride on horse back Behold then upon the opening of the temple of God in heaven the powerfull and glorious effects that the ministry of the spirit flowing from thence shall produce and be accompanied with for the making manifest the true Israel of God The Lord himself will descend first with the voice of the Archangel that
power and office by the sight givē to them of his star a star that made him known to thē and went before them to conduct them to a sight of him in his owne person which is al that this sort of messengers or preachers of Christ can do Thus the book of the creatures by Gods special Ordination and institution in the way of types ād figures through the ministry of angels does teach and preach the righteousnes of God which is in Christ in order to lead us to the personal sight of him that we may in the end hear himself speak After this manner the righteousnes of God in Christ is and may be manifested without the law or written word Secondly In the same Psalm he mentions another sort of preaching and teaching of the knowledg of Christ and that is out of his law the law of his written word the ministry whereof is for the converting of mens Soules and it is a sure Testimony that makes wise the simple more to be desired then gold yea then much fine gold sweeter also then hony and the hony-comb The righteous statutes and judgments of God signified in his written word reioyce the heart and are true and righteous altogether His commandement is pure enlightning the eyes Concerning the law or command of God thus manifested Christ sayes search the Scripturs whose true office is not only to revive and instruct you in that law that was written in your hearts at the creation and lost by the fal but to send you to me also that by obteyning a personal sight of me in spirit you might be farther instructed in the knowledge of me But ye wil not come unto me that ye may have life Thirdly and lastly Ps 8 2 David shews that there is another sort of preachers that God sends as labourers into his harvest saying out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou founded or ordeined strength because of thine enemies and that thou mightest stil the enemy and the avenger These babes and sucklings Christ himself interprets and expounds to us Luke 10.21 first of those his sent ones seventy in number which he immediatly authorized and qualified by commission from himself sending them two by two before his face as his harbingers and forerunners into every city and place whither he himself would come Secondly he expounds it of those babes and children of the fathers begetting to whom he reveals those things which he had hid from the wise and prudent One of these babes Peter is acknowledged by Christ to be Mat. 16.17 when he called him the rock Christ hereupon owned him as one of the blessed seed who had that sight and knowledg of Christ in spirit given to him which none but the father could reveale Flesh and blood could neither give nor receave it For such knowledg of Christ requires a spiritual eyesight and discerning peculiar to these children and babes of the fathers owne begetting the plantation of his owne right hand of whom Christ sayes Mat. 13.16 17. Blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear Verily I say unto you many prophets and righteous men have desired to se those things which ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them For all things are delivered to me of my father and no man knoweth the son but the father neither knoweth any man the father save the son and he to whomsoever the son wil reveal him This sight of the Father and Son in their mutual relations to and fruitions of each other gained by the personal sight of Christ in spirit is mentiond by Paul 1 Cor. 9.1 when he says Am not I an Apostle have not I seen Christ or am not I one of those that by the sight of Christ in spirit and the revelation of the Son in me have receaved grace and Apostleship to the obedience of faith among al nations for his name These are the pure in heart and poor in spirit that are taught after this most excellent manner to se God and have the knowledg of Jesus Christ in order thereby to be made ministers and witnesses as wel of the things at first seē by them as of those also wherein afterwards Christ yet reserus himself farther and more fully to appear unto them These speak the things which they know testify that which they have seē whether their witnesse be receaved or no having themselv first heard the record that God gives of his Son and set to their seal that God is trues This is the threefold cord the lines whereof are streched out over al the world and to the ends of the earth by the quickning power of the living WORD He rideth upon the heaven of heavens of old Loe he sends out his voice in each and in al these his dispensations and that a mighty voice sharper then any two-edged sword peircing even to the dividing asunder of soule and spirit and of the joynts and marrow a discoverer of the thoughts and intents of the heart Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight All things are naked and open to the eyes of this our great saviour and redeemer And as he speaks immediatly by himself by the voice of his owne mouth so does he also send out his voice by his hosts or armies of angels those ministers of his which doe his pleasure and signify his commands to others which they receave as always attending and hearkning to the voice of his word The word therefore as at first it is given in a fore-running and preparatory dispensation to the Sons appearance in his owne person is called Heb. 2.2 the word spoken by angels the command whereof is so stedfast that every transgression and disobedience thereof receaves a just recompence of reward By the Rule and autority of the holy and elect angels exercis'd according to his word and law was God the Mediatour Pleased to put and keep in subjection the whole first creation even man also who in his first and mutable state is the cheif and highest member thereof next under the angels themselvs By means of this angelical ministry and Rule under Christ or in the hand of the Mediatour the righteousnes of God wrought out in the person of the redeemer is made manifest without the law to the gentiles that are without law that is the knowledg of the Scriptures or written word as also by the law to the jews that are in and under the teaching of Gods written oracles and do or may there find the witness and manifestation thereof In and by these it doth appear that Jesus Christ died for our sins and is risen again for our justification By jews in this case we are not only to understand the seed of Abraham according to the flesh but those also among the gentiles who are planted into the same good olive tree Christ on the same tearms of mutability as they
were liable to be broken off again and those also that are after the spirit true heirs according to the promise who are in like manner under this dispensation and teaching til the seed himself come and take them from this Schoolmaster in order to bring them under the most lively effectual teaching and instruction of his owne mouth and by his owne personal appearance in spirit to them either as the day-star arising in their hearts and giving forth the glory of his first appearance in his owne face as he is the Son of man in the form of a servant and fashion of the first Adam made immutable or 2dly as the sun in its strength breaking forth in their soules that are gathered to him appointed and qualified to be with him in the Kingdom of his father and admitted to the peculiar priviledge of beholding his glory in the face of his most exalted and heavenly manhood as he is the only begotten lying in the fathers bosome he that is above all What he hath seen and heard in the beholding of the fathers shape and very similitude that he testifieth but no man receaveth this his testimony that is but a meer man and no more For it is not it cannot be conveyed or communicated unto any but with unspeakable words which it is not possible for man in the single capacity of his first nature and make though become immutable to receave or utter so much doe they surpasse all the knowledg as wel as expression of meer man Under the voice of this threefold ministry God the mediatour who is the possessour of heaven and earth the maker of them and all therein hath made of one blood al nations of men for to dwel on the face of the earth hath distributed to al of them and determined the bounds of their habitations as also the different and proper means to bring them back to himself by repentance from dead works and faith towards the living God He hath awakened that light in every one that comes into the world that shal move and cal upon them at some time or other upon occasion of sundry concurring providences to seek the Lord if haply they may feel after him and find him who is not far from every one of us It ought not then to be a thing incredible with us but that by these means provision is made by God in Christ and care taken not only for the restoring of man againe unto that righteousnes and purity of nature which he lost and to the exercise of that kind of freewil which he enjoyed at creation but yet farther to regenerate and beget him into a more excellent fashion of being and heavenly frame of Spirit in and by which the end of his first creation is fully answered and the law of it accomplished Of this we shal now in the third place proceed to treat by way of answer to 3. The third generall Query which is this In what sence is it possible for man in his mutable state considered either before or after his fall according to the degree of restoring healing grace which he does or may arrive unto to hear and obey the things of Gods law without turning from it finally and in so doing to grow up out of his mutable into his immutable state and be made heir and possessour of life eternal To understand this the more plainly and distinctly and to prevent prejudices and mistakes we shal discusse this subject under these 4 particular enquiries following as branches of this 3d maine point and general query 1. Whether was man at first created in a capacity of being and aptitude of mind possible to obey and fulfill the law of nature so to as answer the end of his creation til brought under a second work of Gods hand call'd the new creation and thereby cast into a new mould and frame of being Secondly whether man by sin be so unmade againe and corrupted so disorder'd and disabled that by the blessing and vertue of Christs blood and the proper and fit means that by the father are put into the hands of the Mediatour he is not in a capacity and possibility notwithstanding his losse by the fall to be restored and made able againe to obey Gods law with the same kind of ability God gave him at first And upon such restoration is he not obliged to set about it at least to shew his good will and syncere inclination of mind there unto according to the measure of the ability he receaves 3. How was man to employ and make use of his naturall ability and strength given for the performance of Gods law and according to what rule might or ought he to have walked with God either before or after the fall which would infallibly guide and unmoveably keepe him in the way to eternall life a way which is called the way of holines such as the uncleane passe not over and the wayfaring men though fooles cannot or shall not erre therein and at the end whereof is immortality and eternall blessednes 4. How comes man in a judiciall manner to be hardned by God and made a vessell of wrath fitted and appointed to everlasting destruction And when is it that he shal be denied any farther benefit by the Sacrifice or Christs death and no more permitted to change his mind and turne from his evill wayes though he should seek it with teares but be in a certaine expectation of the unquenchable flames of Gods wrath ordeined for the punishing and devouring of all fixed and impenitent sinners To the first of these enquiries The creatour did at the beginning put a created ability and principle of motiō into the creature But the strength and power of this first impression is not sufficient for the continued motion of every respective creature in its kind but a perpetuall concourse and cooperation of the creatour is needfull thereunto Then doubtlesse man who was made in Gods image a rationall and free agent the masterpiece of the visible creation ought not to thinke himself exempt from such a dependance nor to covet or desire to be made perpetuall upō such tearms as would in effect dethrone his creatour and make more Gods then one The end for which man was at all created was to be perpetually moving in love and service to his creatour as a vessel prepared with meetnes for the use of his Lord in whatever he should be commāded by him for the advancement of his prayse and glory Now as loue is the end and perfection of the commādemēt so is it the first and cheife principle out of which all true obedience to the commād must proceed and a duration and perpetuity in this loue and duty is absolutely necessary to mans hapines and continuance in Gods favour and good liking For untill a man keep Gods commandements out of this principle and be sure of its unchangeablenes he neither can be sayd to walke in that Covenāt or agreement with God